Mieko
by arw8928
Summary: Oneshot. At a banquet, the Hitachiin twins encounter the girl they chastised and rejected during middle school in Episode 20. Not categorized as romance because I don't really see this relationship like that.


Mieko Oshiro was a shy, timid child.

She was from a large, wealthy family, and she absolutely despised it. Her father was the president of a major Japanese electronics company, and from the time she was born her father had been grooming her to show off for him.

Sometimes she just simply **didn't want to. **Sometimes she wanted to sit at home and not be bothered, not out socializing at events and galas.

Her father was constantly bugging her to come out of her shell, make friends, get a boyfriend.

In her 2nd year of middle school, she began to notice them. A couple of boys, existing only in the background. They were like white noise in a loud room. Like supporting characters to everyone else's lives. No one seemed to notice them.

But she did.

She noticed the way they whispered to each other in the back of the classrooms. She noticed the way they walked together in the long, echoing hallways. And eventually she fell in love with it. Naturally. With no pushing or bribing of persuasion from her father.

She fell in love, something that she'd always avoided. And what happened when she tried to take the next step with them made her realize why she'd avoided it.

She didn't associate with either of the Hitachiin twins for the rest of their time in school. In fact, she hardly associated with anyone. She had tried to come out of her shell, but the twins rejection and cruelty had pushed her back into it, perhaps farther in than she was in the first place.

It wasn't until a few years after their graduation that she saw the twins again. Her father attended a banquet one evening to do some networking, and he, unfortunately, came with his family in tow. Mieko stood awkwardly against a counter, just wishing she could go home. Moments like this were the perfect examples of the times when she wished most that her family was not so well known and that they were not so greatly obligated to attend these extravaganzas.

In a corner across the room she spotted two familiar faces, really more like one familiar face on two bodies. She felt tears brimming in her eyes as she thought back to their cruel prank many years before. She quickly pulled her eyes away as one of them glanced up. When she found the courage to lift her eyes from the floor in front of her, she found one of the twins still staring at her. His topaz eyes stared deeply into her, but her pewter ones skipped all around the area surrounding him, trying not to linger too long directly on him, but still catching glimpses out of the corner of her eye. His gaze finally dropped from her and he turned to his brother. Mieko watched as he laid a hand on his twin, still absorbed in his phone.

"Look at that girl over there," he said to his brother.

The brother on his phone looked up and his eyes locked onto the lonely looking girl.

"What about her?"

"She looks so… familiar."

"...Yeah, she does," the twin said as he quickly glanced up once more and then retreated back to his phone.

"Could you **stop **texting Haruhi for **one minute **and look at her!?"

"I **did. **If you want to know who she is, then go talk to her," he said, not even slightly looking up from the screen being flooded with messages from his fiancée.

The twin rolled his eyes and stood up. His eyes lingered on Mieko for a moment before he sauntered toward her.

Before she registered what was happening, he was next to her, leaning on the counter she was standing against, with a crooked, charismatic smile, appearing on his lips. Her eyes lingered on his face for half a second before again retreating to the ground.

"Have we met before?" the twin asked, the smile never fading from his lips, "You seem… very familiar to me."

"…Which one are you?" she asked barely above a whisper.

He moved his right hand from its position on the counter and placed it on Mieko's chin, tilting it up ever so slightly, making her eyes meet his. He moved his face closer to hers, and he could see her pupils dilate under his unwavering gaze.

"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that," he whispered, loud enough that she could hear, but quietly enough that no one else could.

She was silent, stunned that this could be the same boy that had hurt her so deeply before. She repeated her question even more quietly than before.

"W-which one are you?"

"Which one do you think?"

"I-I don't know. You're identical to your b-brother over there," spoke Mieko, stumbling over her words as she stared into the eyes of the Hitachiin brother before her.

The twin let go of her chin and leaned back to a more comfortable distance. She saw his eyes cloud over with what appeared to be tears, but he quickly blinked them away before he lost control of his emotions. Her mouth dropped open at the sight of the Hitachiin on the verge of tears, wondering what she had done to him to make him so upset. She instinctively backed away, her own eyes brimming with tears. She turned to go, but the fiery haired twin lunged forward and latched his hand onto her wrist.

"I'm so sorry," he choked out.

Mieko couldn't say anything for a minute, completely confused as to why he would apologize to her. He stared intently at her, though not in the same way as he had before. Before he had stared at her in a cute, flirtatious way. Now his eyes were full of a conflicted sadness, what almost appeared to be… guilt.

"What's the matter? What… what do you have to be sorry for?"

He couldn't remember. There was no way. And even if he did, she couldn't see him being sorry for it if his life depended, much less apologizing to her directly for it.

He stared at her for a long moment before he spoke.

"The last time we met you, my brother and I, we were… prisoners. We built ourselves into a prison with only enough space for the two of us. And… we only recently found the key…

Mieko stood in front of the twin in shocked silence, staring at him in disbelief.

"No," Mieko stated flatly.

"What?"

"No. I… I'm to one who is sorry."

"No, my brother and I, we were the ones who chastised you. All you did was write him a love note."

"You chastised me for how superficial I was… it was my fault you had anything to berate me for."

The twin opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, but found no words to speak.

"At the time… all I cared about was your appearance. I thought I was in love with you. Or him. Or both of you. But… I suppose you can't really love someone that you don't know."

The Hitachiin brother said nothing, and after a few moments of awkward eye contact, Mieko's eyes retreated back to watching her pale feet.

"If you judge people by their appearance, you're stereotyping them and you'll never see the person inside."

"What?"

"An old friend of mine used to say that."

Mieko stood quietly in front of him. She glanced over to the other twin, and saw that he was now off of his phone completely and was staring intently at his brother and her. Mieko's gaze fell back to the brother in front of her and saw that he was watching her deeply.

"I would… love to get to know you better…" she uttered quietly, but after a few second of him remaining speechless, she added, "I mean… only if you want-"

Mieko stopped short as the twin stepped toward her again, reached forward, and brought both of her shaking hands up from her side and clasped them in his.

"Mieko Oshiro, if my memory is as infallible as ever?" he spoke, putting his charming smile back on. Mieko nodded, her eyes now unable to fall from his, despite them being so eager to earlier.

The Hitachiin grinned bigger as he saw a smile begin to tug at Mieko's lips.

"I'm Kaoru, by the way."

AN:

This was written mostly for my friend, after we were discussing our Ouran ships recently. She shipped Hikaru with Haruhi, Tamaki with Kyoya, and, of course Honey and Mori. It then made us both sad to realize that with her ships, this left Kaoru with no one. She was trying to write a fic about each of her ships, but she really wanted Kaoru included, and the first thing that came to my mind was that she put Kaoru with the girl from episode 20 who wrote Hikaru a love note and was then berated by the twins when it became obvious she only cared about their looks. I actually wrote this entire fic while she was on the phone with me telling me to hurry up so she could read it. Of course I spruced it up a little after that. I hope you enjoyed, and you can rest assured that I'll be working on another fic after this one is up! -Amy.


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